Charitable uses of upload bandwidth?

Question

My google-fu is failing me. I already donate most of my spare CPU time to BOINC projects. I'd like to donate my spare up-load bandwidth to worthy causes, particularly if they have high-social value, like if it helps save lives or helps scientific research. Unlike BOINC, bit torrent doesn't come with a list of non-profits that need help.

Does anyone know of a list like this?

Background. I considered being a Tor exit node and pirates bay seeder, but both can lead to phone calls from lawyers or my ISP and pirates bay is mostly entertainment, not exactly a worthy charitable cause.

While Linux is really cool, bringing yet another operating system to the world doesn't interest me if there isn't a interesting angle to it.

Answer 1

Be a seed for the SICP lectures on Bittorrent?

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman-lectures/

Answer 2

I donate my upload bandwidth to GIGRIB.

It is distributed website monitoring service. If you participate your bandwidth will be used to detect if websites are down and in turn you can have your own websites monitored.

Answer 3

You could spin up an ArchiveTeam Warrior instance (VM, Dockerfile, etc., associated with the Internet Archive) to help archive sites and services that are going offline or being discontinued.

e.g. currently they're archiving Panoramio, a Google acquisition that will shut down soon.

Answer 4

You've inspired me to start seeding some torrents from linuxtracker.org.

Answer 5

Debian and Ubuntu can always use help - they make releases available via bittorrent.

Also you could be a Tor bridge relay, which lets you help the network but not take on the risks associated with being an exit node.

Along those lines, I2P is neat and worthy of help.

Answer 6

In the background of the question, volunteering to be a Tor exit node was mentioned. This is still a really good option for donating bandwidth. To assuage worries about ISP trouble, there are lots of tips to deal with this in this article by Mike Perry.

Reason Tor is a good charitable option: Tor gives anonymity to people in countries with oppressive governments -- I'm not mentioning any names. Here's the bottom-line reason for running a bridge or relay:

The Tor network relies on volunteers to donate bandwidth. The more people who run Tor as a relay or a bridge, the faster and safer the network becomes.

On the Tor Project website, there's information on how to run a bridge (less traffic) and how to run a relay (more traffic).

Lest this answer sound like paid advertising for Tor: I am a user in the Tor network, but I am not involved with the project in any other way. (I should be!)